One Door Closes
by becca85
Summary: When one door closes, does another really open?
1. Rachel Wheaton

**A/N: Written in the same vein as "Once Upon Another Life," this series of one-shots shift the timeline to their first night in the house. They are all meant to stand alone and can be read as such, but a couple of them may make brief mention to something I may have alluded to in "Once Upon Another Life." The ordering of the chapters are different (aka, Pam was chapter one in OUAL, but Rachel is chapter one here). I've been toying with the idea of making a third series of one-shots set the morning after they escape (I think that's a Sunday), but nothing concrete has been started yet. The chapters here run about the same length; I tried to stay between 600-700 words. As with OUAL, new chapters will be posted every Friday.**

**DISCLAIMER: ****I do not own any of the characters or ideas created by Stephen King. I borrowed them for the entertainment and amusement of my audience.**

**SUMMARY: When one door closes, does another really open?**

**GENRE: Horror**

**RATING: PG-13**

**DATE: August 22, 2013**

**::~*~::**

Rachel closed the door behind her and Annie, the bedside lamps barely illuminating the massive room. Joyce had personally escorted them to their room, taking delight in showing them many of the amenities of their room, and, if Rachel didn't know any better, she felt certain that Joyce had given them to the nicest room of the lot. She looked around uncertainly, her adrenaline having been pumping full steam since she had entered the house seven hours earlier. Mildly impressed with the opulent luxury in evidence everywhere, she wished the very environment of the house wasn't so terrifying that she could actually take some time to appreciate it.

Spying a small switch on the wall next to the door, she assumed, because of its position, that it would light up the chandelier in the center of the room. The thought of using caution when pushing buttons and flipping switches in a proven haunted house not occurring to her in her exhausted state of mind, she flipped the switch to bring more illumination into the room. Her assumption correct, the chandelier blazed to life…before several bulbs promptly burst from the sudden onslaught of electricity to their ancient wires. Rachel gasped in shock, pressing her back against the door of the room, ready to grab Annie and bolt if anything even remotely supernatural started happening. After several bulbs had literally exploded, the chandelier finally went dark, plunging the room back into its semi-gloom of earlier. Surprisingly, the bedside lamps remained lit and, for that, Rachel was grateful. She didn't think she could handle any of this ghostly phenomena without the others around.

It was one thing when it was just Annie causing things to happen. Having lived with her since the day she was born, Rachel had grown used to expecting strange things when it came to Annie. Granted, Annie could still scare her half to death on occasion, especially when Rachel was unprepared, but, for the most part, Rachel understood Annie on a level that most people didn't, and that allowed her to always be on her guard when things started getting a little weird.

It was a completely different thing when Annie wasn't the only psychic variable anymore. Now there were five other individuals (six if Nick's insinuations about Steve were correct), that could power the house's psychic field, and the house… Rachel didn't want to think about the nature of the house any more than necessary. It was very clear that it lived and acted of its own accord. Even with Rachel's acceptance of Annie's gifts in a world of narrow-minded and grounded individuals, she still couldn't wrap her head around a sentient house. If a house could be said to think and exist in a conscious state, what else was possible? Perhaps an easier question was what _wasn't_ possible?

Shaking herself out of her thoughts, she looked around for Annie. Rachel smiled in spite of the oppressive atmosphere of the house. Annie was seated happily on the large king-sized bed, playing with her dolls. Rachel's smile faded as she saw Annie playing with the new one that she had found in the carriage only a short time ago. Annie had immediately adopted it as her own. Just the very sight of the doll gave her the creeps. Joyce hadn't said anything about it—maybe she didn't even know—but Rachel suspected the doll once belonged to April Rimbauer, the six-year-old girl who had vanished from the kitchen so many years ago. At least, the ghostly figure that had shown up within minutes of Annie claiming the doll looked like the young girl.

Rachel really didn't want to sleep with the doll in the room, but she suspected Annie would throw a massive fit if the doll were taken away. She shrugged her shoulders, the gesture lost on the only other occupant of the room. She was spending the night in a haunted house; the creepy doll was really the least of her worries. It was going to be a long night any way she looked at it.


	2. Nick Hardaway

Nick closed the door behind him and turned to face the large quarters that had been designated as his for the weekend. Neglecting the lights, he navigated his way to the bed by moonlight and tossed his bag onto the bed. He was surprised there was enough moonlight filtering in at all to make the navigation of the bedroom easy. The thick vines that had crept up the exterior walls of the mansion seemed to have choked the very windows, but the full moon seemed quite as insistent in breaking through nature's curtains to pierce the room inside.

Fumbling with a small pocket in his bag, Nick pulled out a carton of cigarettes and his book of matches. He knew he was an old-fashioned guy, choosing matches over the ever popular lighter, but there was something calming about striking the match and watching it burn down. He tore one out and struck it, holding the fragile flame up to the end of a cigarette until it lit. He flicked the match out as he inhaled the sweet smoke. He normally didn't smoke inside, especially in other's people's houses, but he didn't think Steve would mind. The house was coming down in a few months anyways, and he most certainly wasn't going to go outside just for a smoke. He tossed the carton and the matches back on the bed and moved over to the window, peering between the dead greenery to the city lights in the distance.

Heedless of whatever was contained within the many walls of this massive mansion, the traffic on the freeway just beyond the boundary of Rose Red moved just as it always had. Nick exhaled a cloud of smoke and wondered, rather morbidly, if they were all to die this night, would anyone traversing that freeway even care. Would they even know? Rose Red had a habit of swallowing its occupants with barely any trace of them ever being found again. Would anyone come looking for them? How many people knew they were here? Annie's parents knew for sure and so did Professor Miller and that Bollinger kid. In fact, evidence supported Bollinger's presence in the house at this present moment, though, where he was, no one could answer. Nick was concerned about Bollinger's whereabouts, but how much could he hope to discover on his own, especially since Joyce didn't seem to care and everyone else had pushed him out of their minds.

Nick shivered, despite the warmth of the room. A sense of uneasiness had taken up residence in his breast since Joyce's first phone call, yet he had chosen to ignore it. He didn't know how or why he knew, but he strongly suspected he wasn't leaving this house alive. Any sane person would have called him crazy to have gone forward with his participation in this project, knowing, or, at the very least, sensing, what he did, but he had committed himself to it. Maybe he _was_ a little crazy, but the choice had been made and he was here now.

He sighed. He truly was old-fashioned and he silently cursed his sense of chivalry. He was a sucker for a damsel in distress and, while none of the "damsels" in the house were currently in distress, he knew it wouldn't be long until they were.

Snuffing out the spent cigarette on the windowsill, he looked around for a trash can, but, finding none, he placed the butt carefully on the sill. He would take it downstairs in the morning. While he didn't feel the least bit tired, he figured he should attempt to get some sleep, as there was really nothing else to do. Attempting to investigate the house in the dead of the night sounded like the paramount of stupid ideas. Dragging his bag off of the bed, he dropped it into a chair. Forsaking a change of clothing into something more comfortable for sleeping, he just dropped right onto the bed, not even taking the time to slip under the covers. Sleep was still a long time in coming and was anything but restful.


	3. Cathy Kramer

**A/N: This was an interesting chapter to write, only because of the seemingly conflicting sleeping arrangements. When the scene cycles through the members of the group after they've retired for the night, it initially shows Cathy and Pam rooming together. However, after analyzing the scene, I've come to the conclusion that Pam and Cathy actually had separate rooms. They're only "bunking" together during Pam's nightmare sequence. **

**::~*~::**

Cathy closed the door behind her, somewhat apprehensive that she hadn't taken Pam up on her earlier suggestion. Cathy had never been to a summer camp as a girl, but she'd gone to more than her fair share of slumber parties, where she had wowed many of her friends with her talents on the Ouija board. A girls' night had sounded like such a fun idea, despite their surroundings. Very innocent and even welcome in contrast to the oppressing atmosphere of Rose Red, but Joyce reassured them that the rooms were safe. Cathy had immediately repented of her poor thoughts in response to that comment, but how could Joyce, of all people, know what was safe and what wasn't in a notoriously haunted house? Hadn't she selected them because _they_ could sense that supernatural world more so than she? On a slightly brighter note, though, nothing felt threatening about the room, so Cathy was content to let herself feel a little bit at ease.

Cathy carefully picked her way across the darkened room, her only guide the faint moonlight shining down through the windows. She wished she'd had the foresight to leave her bedside lamp on after she had dropped her bag on the bed earlier. Turning the bedside light on, she set her purse on the edge of the bed next to her clothing bag. She chuckled bitterly as she noticed the unused flashlight she had also set down and wondered what was happening to her mind. Opening the bag up, she quickly rifled through it until she found her small Bible. The moment her fingers touched the leather bound cover, a peaceful feeling washed over her. While she was still quite uncomfortable being in the house, she felt a lot better knowing that she had her faith to fall back on. Setting the book prominently on the bedside table, she pulled out her sleepwear and quickly changed.

She didn't want to admit to anyone that she was deeply shaken. Being an automatic writer, she wasn't used to these very overt physical manifestations. She was loathe to admit that anything could shake her Christian foundation, but the appearance of that ghostly specter twice had her at odds with her religious upbringing. It was a fine line to walk, that line between the supernatural world of ghosts and restless spirits and of good Christian religion. Somewhere in her life, she'd found the balance between them, but it always seemed to be shifting as her understanding of one overshadowed the other and vice versa.

Walking over to the window, she took solace in the sight of modern civilization only a stone's throw away. It was strange how just entering the house could feel like entering a completely different world. The furnishings were still very much reminiscent of the early 1900s, except for what Joyce had brought. While still so close to the city, she still felt so completely cut off from it. Was it possible to exist in two places at the same time? Certain she would lose her mind if she focused too much energy on the horrors of Rose Red, she turned away from the entrancing scene of vehicles moving over the freeway and the twinkling lights of businesses as they turned on and off.

Desiring nothing more than to curl up with the "Good Book," she scooted a bedside chair closer to the small lamp on the table and opened to where Vic and she had been discussing earlier. Revelation 12. When touring the house earlier, she had made a comment about how the house seemed to alter its appearance and layout to reflect the desires of its mistress. She had thought there was a biblical similarity of a woman who was pursued by a dragon while the forces of nature and the Hand of God had prevailed against the serpent to ensure her safety. She had correctly assumed the right book of scripture, but Vic had thought the account occurred later in the Book of Revelation. Finding the Book of Revelation a little depressing during her present sojourn in Rose Red, she flipped back to the Gospels and contented herself with reading about the Master and His teachings.


	4. Victor Kandinsky

**A/N: These one-shots are designed to stand alone instead of "piggybacking" off of the one-shots in "Once Upon Another Life," but Vic's story makes reference to his deceased wife, which was the focus of his chapter in "Once Upon Another Life." You can still read this one without reading that one, but if you're interested in reading that chapter first, it's chapter two.**

**::~*~::**

Vic closed the door behind him and stared suspiciously around the gloomy room, as though waiting for something to leap out of the darkness and cut him down where he stood. When nothing appeared, he exhaled audibly, as though the weight of some unseen burden had been lifted from his shoulders. He was too frightened to confess a most horrible truth to any of the others. He had brushed it off upon first entering the house, but the more investigating they had done and the further into the farthest recesses of the house they had traveled, the more glaring the realization was for him.

He had the gift of precognition. He had the ability to see the future though usually only a few minutes into it. Yet, ever since they had stepped inside the house, Vic had been unable to foresee anything. Truly anything. It was as though the house had veiled his gift so that he was unable to see anything. The very thought of a sentient house, especially one with such a bloody history, terrified him almost more than he could bear. At least with people, you could observe how they acted and make assumptions on future behavior through those actions, but a house? It was a completely different playing field where Vic couldn't even begin to guess the rules of the game.

He loosened the top two buttons of his shirt, the feeling of claustrophobia threatening to choke him. Despite the roominess of the bedchamber, he felt as though the walls were closing in about him. He had taken one of his heart medication pills only an hour before, but the desire for another one was already upon him. He shook his head as though the very action would halt the pain in his chest. He should not be needing another pill so soon.

He stumbled over to the bed and collapsed upon the soft, downy mattress, his fingers fumbling for the vial in his pocket. Slipping the last pill between his lips, he swallowed it and lay still, waiting for the pain to subside.

Setting aside the many horrors of Rose Red, he'd had some fun today. It had been such a long time since he'd danced, particularly with such a lovely dance partner. He was no simpleton, of course, and he knew there were no romantic inclinations on his side or hers, but she had proved an adept dancer and he had been put in mind of dancing with another young lady, many years before. Of, how he missed her! The pain in his heart intensified, but he knew it was not from his illness. A heart that had broken only a year before was still very tender in its mending. Breathing deeply, he waited for the pain to pass before he attempted to sit up.

In a modern world where youngsters were trying to find new-fangled ways of scandalous dancing, it was quite refreshing to be in the company of people who knew what true dance was all about and could still appreciate the art in every move and every turn of the body. He had even been most entertained upon seeing Steve and Annie dancing, that being the most animated he'd seen her since she had yelled at the foul wind in the upstairs room.

Standing up on shaky legs, he pulled his flannel sleepwear out of his bag. Summer may be just around the corner, but spring had not relinquished its chilly embrace. Once he was clothed again, he turned down the sheets and crawled under the covers, waiting impatiently for his body temperature to warm the bed up. After several minutes, he turned to turn the lamp off only to note the thick, half-spent candle on the corner of the nightstand. Seeing a very old book of matches next to it, he quickly lit the candle and settled in to watch the mesmerizing flame as it lulled him to sleep.


	5. Annie Wheaton

Annie heard the door close behind her and she smiled to herself. Clutching the two dolls closer to her chest, she started walking towards the bed. When the chandelier lights started flashing and exploding, she hardly paid them any attention. Lost in a world that was entirely of her making, Annie had tuned out the mortal world around her.

By the time the chandelier had finally gone quiet, Annie had seated herself on the large bed and was cradling both of her dolls in her arms. Looking at them curiously, she wondered what to call them. When it was just the one, "Baby" seemed a very suitable name, but now that there were two of them, "Baby" seemed inappropriate. Annie screwed up her eyes in concentration as she tried to think of appropriate names. She needed a boy name and a girl name, as she now had a boy doll to go with her girl doll.

Surfacing as though from a deep pool of water, two names that she had heard earlier came to her mind: _April and Adam._ She looked closely at her two dolls, certain that they had spoken to her mind. She smiled as whispers floated through her ears, telling her all sorts of fun things.

"Annie." Rachel's voice broke thru the haze of her thoughts. Annoyed by the interruption, Annie looked up.

Rachel was staring at her, Annie's pajamas in her outstretched hands. Annie shook her head defiantly. She didn't want to go to bed. She wanted to play with April and Adam. Pressing the dolls tightly against her chest, she shook her again.

Rachel's expression took on a fatigued look as she held out the clothing more insistently. "If you want to play for a few more minutes, you need to get dressed now. What if the lights go off? How will you be able to get dressed in the dark? You should do it now while the lights are on."

Annie stared at Rachel for several seconds before she reluctantly transferred both dolls to one arm and held out the free hand. Rachel dumped the clothes into her hand before turning her back to the bag to pull out her own sleepwear.

"Did you have fun dancing with Steve tonight?" Rachel asked, her voice slightly muffled by the shirt she was pulling on over her head. Annie had just pulled on her bottoms and plopped down on the bed to wait for Rachel. All thoughts of Adam and April gone, Annie started nodding her head enthusiastically. She had surprised him so much when they started dancing in the air. She giggled at the memory of his shocked face. She liked the way he smiled at her and she had been so happy when he had come over to start dancing with her.

Rachel's head finally popped out of the shirt and she bent over Annie to start tickling her side. "What are you giggling about?"

Annie's laughter drowned out any attempt to speak. After several minutes of tickling each other, they finally collapsed upon the bed, chests heaving as they sought to catch their breath. Annie wished she could put into words how at home she felt here. She had found another doll, dominoes, a dollhouse, music that she adored, and, somewhere in the house, there was a new friend who wanted to play hide-and-go-seek with her.

The bout of tickling having worn her out, Annie rolled over onto her side to look at Rachel. Rachel was staring at the ceiling, seemingly oblivious to Annie's presence. Annie hugged her dolls to her and rolled over, slipping her feet underneath the covers.

As she started drifting off to sleep, her mind was filled with records spinning through the air as their haunting melody pulled all of her new friends into a dance through the stars. She decided that she liked it here and she never wanted to leave.


	6. Steve Rimbauer

Steve closed the door behind him and went immediately to the large, four-poster bed where he threw himself across it. He never should have agreed to this. Ever since he'd arrived on the doorstep of this house from hell, he knew it had it in for him. If he was any other person, he'd have laughed at the very idea that a house could be antagonistic towards a person, but no one else had such a bloody connection to a pile of wood, stone, and glass.

After lying down for only a few moments, he bolted upright again. He was too wired to sleep. His feet propelled him across the floor towards the large bay windows. He rested his arms against the cool glass panes as he surveyed the scene below him. His room overlooked the side of the house and from his vantage point he could see an ankle-deep pool of stagnant water collected from countless rainfalls. Dead leaves and broken tree branches were scattered across its surface. Along the length of this pool were a number of statuesque imps, identical to the guardian of the house, figures frozen in mid-dance as they leapt around the tepid water. In another time, the figures could be called happy and gay, but frozen in the moonlight, they were the very epitome of calloused demons as they guarded their hellish domain. The guardian had scared him the most as a child. He stood guard over the entrance to the house, his elbow propped up on a knee as a mischievous smile tugged at the corner of his stony mouth. Steve had always wondered what secrets he was hiding, what horrors he had witnessed.

Spring may have come to the rest of Seattle, but Steve was certain it would never find a foothold in Rose Red. It existed in a perpetual state of dying and dead, a winter existence. The caretaker had lamented the horrid state of the grounds and tried his hardest to coax some life from a wayward branch or an errant bush. Steve had admired the man's persistence and hadn't the heart to tell him it was pointless. That's what he got when he hired immigrants. Nobody who lived in Seattle for any length of time would go anywhere near the house; they'd all heard the rumors. He'd finally resorted to hiring the little Frenchman that had gone begging from house to house for work. The little man hadn't spoken a word of English, so he hadn't heard the rumors of Rose Red, or hadn't understood them if he had. Steve's only saving grace had been his ability to speak French fluently. He'd insisted on taking it in high school in a vain attempt to impress women with the language of love. By the time the Frenchman had learned enough English to understand the rumors when they reached his ears, he'd decided the house had had ample opportunity to devour him and, as he was still alive, he was quite safe within her borders.

Steve laughed at that memory, his breath fogging up the window pane. His fingers brushing lightly across the glass to wipe away the fog, he only hoped they could all share in the luck that little Frenchman seemed to have bottled up. Something told him they wouldn't be that lucky. If he could put an actual emotion to it, he felt the house was a little too happy at having visitors. That couldn't possibly bode well for any of them.

Surprised to find himself pacing, Steve decided to make another attempt at sleep. Stripping down to his boxers and tee shirt, he slipped underneath the covers, certain that Joyce wouldn't be joining him this night. Trying in vain to count sheep in his quest for sleep, he finally gave up on that when the sheep started crossing his field of vision, splattered with blood and whispering his name in a hauntingly familiar feminine voice.


End file.
